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Topic: Special Snowflake Stories (Read 6170280 times)

I canít remember if I posted this one or not. The owner of a local mom-n-pop that we go to all the time went to the effort to spruce up the outside parking lot and make it a bit more difficult for the patrons of the bar next door to take over all of his parking lot leaving no place for his patrons to park. He got really nice planter pots and planted shrubs in them. Week later, planters were gone. He replaced them. Week later, shrubs were gone. He figured it was the bar owner stealing them so that his customers could drive over the curb and park in the lot (He blocked off the entrance at night with saw horses.) so he turned one of the security cameras on the entrance. Turns out that a local landscape company was coming by and taking them. When the police caught them, they brazenly admitted to stealing them because the shrubs were too expensive to buy so they were taking them to sell to their customers.

That's too funny! I wonder if one day the squirrel will have an epiphany and just jump up the pole with the food on it They're too darned smart.

My father had a bird feeder, dozens of birds would come (and when he went outside to fill it they'd gather in the trees overhead), until the squirrels came. After a couple of winters of the squirrels emptying the feeder, I looked for a solution online and found the Yankee Flipper feeder. The rungs the birds sit on are motorized, and weight-triggered to spin if anything heavier than a bird gets on it. It worked like a charm, but I have seen a YouTube video of a squirrel hanging on for the ride.

I didn't know until my dogs treed one. They were very proud of themselves.

Once they showed me what they had done, they left the tree and the groundhog eventually did, too.

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"The Universe puts us in places where we can learn. They are never easy places, but they are right. Wherever we are, it's the right place and the right time. Pain that sometimes comes is part of the process of constantly being born." - Delenn to Sheridan: "Babylon 5 - Distant Star"

But one Easter, during the big Easter mass when the church was full to bursting (they opened up two classrooms that adjoined the church to accommodate people and even they were full) one SS had his mobile phone ring right in the middle of the stations of the cross. This was in the 90s, before everyone had a mobile phone. The priest stopped, right in the middle and looked at him.

See, I think this is rude. The only thing the guy has done wrong is to *forget* to turn off his cell phone.

I was in church once when, just as the pastor called upon us to pray, a pager went off, paging a member of the congregation to the local hospital. The doctor got up, grinning sheepishly, a few people chuckled, and the pastor waited until the door had closed behind the doctor before he started his prayer.. It qualified, IMO, for the old saying of 'Never attribute to malice that which is equally well-explained by stupidity'. Considering the number of doctors in the congregation, and that it happened once, I'm sure there was some mistake in the settings that had made it boom out so audibly.

However, if (general) you don't have a kid with those kinds of allergies, you're probably not going to be nearly as vigilant or thorough because it's just not something you deal with or think about regularly.

My allergist told me that at an allergists' convention, his wife had gone into anaphylactic shock after she took a cracker that was on a lettuce leaf that had previously had shrimp lying on it. And of course her Epi-pen was upstairs in their hotel room. Fortunately, in a room full of allergists, there WERE people who were carrying Epi-pens. But that little bit of shrimp juice that soaked into the cracker was enough to have killed her. Personally, I was a little surprised that shellfish would be served at an allergists' convention (considering how many people choose that specialty because of being allergic themselves). But apparently, whomever had planned the convention catering had not thought about it. Who would have thought that the lettuce would be reused- and that it would retain enough shrimp juice to harm someone? But with that level of allergies in a CHILD, I would think that a parent would best assume that all surfaces ARE contaminated, rather than hoping others will police the environment and leave it allergen-clean.

Jocelyn, it was probably the same caterer who served lemonade and sugar cookies to my local "so you just found you have serious diabetes - here's what comes next" support group. What makes it worse: this particular meeting was catered by the hospital. You'd think someone would know better!

I was checking out at the supermarket today. The man in front of me was joking with the clerk about all the veggies he was buying. the he spotted the cake on a shelf behind the clerk and said "But that looks good, too!"

It was a single square of cake, that serves one or two people, from the store bakery, white icing with colored sprinkles evenly scattered on top, pre-packaged in a clear plastic box. The kind you pick put yourself from a display.

"You know why the customer returned it?" said the clerk. "She didn't like the way the sprinkles had been applied."

I was checking out at the supermarket today. The man in front of me was joking with the clerk about all the veggies he was buying. the he spotted the cake on a shelf behind the clerk and said "But that looks good, too!"

It was a single square of cake, that serves one or two people, from the store bakery, white icing with colored sprinkles evenly scattered on top, pre-packaged in a clear plastic box. The kind you pick put yourself from a display.

"You know why the customer returned it?" said the clerk. "She didn't like the way the sprinkles had been applied."

O.O And she couldn't just, oh, you know, pick up another one out of the case instead of buying, then returning, one that she didn't like just because of the sprinkles? Wow!

That one takes the cake! (Pun totally intended, LOL.)

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"Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes." -Tori Amos

But one Easter, during the big Easter mass when the church was full to bursting (they opened up two classrooms that adjoined the church to accommodate people and even they were full) one SS had his mobile phone ring right in the middle of the stations of the cross. This was in the 90s, before everyone had a mobile phone. The priest stopped, right in the middle and looked at him.

See, I think this is rude. The only thing the guy has done wrong is to *forget* to turn off his cell phone. And maybe so few people call him on it, esp. on a Sunday morning, that it just never occurred to him.

Or he meant to and forgot. Or he thought about it so hard, he thought he'd *done* it.

He didn't get out his cell phone and start making calls; someone *else* called him.

I'm of the opinion that ringing cell phones are sort of like farts--everyone should simply act as though they didn't happen.

I disagree - the one thing he did was disrupt an important religious moment. The difference between a fart and a cell phone is that only one is an involuntary biological reflex. The cell phone comes under the umbrella of disrupting others through carelessness. Is it the worse thing he could have done? No, far from it, but a reminder that it is unacceptable is fine.

But he just forgot. I'm not a fan of shaming people for minor, very human things.

Also, I often find the "stop and stare at him" to be FAR more disruptive than the phone itself.

And I don't think the guy needed a reminder that it was unacceptable--I'm sure he was really embarrassed.

This was before everyone had mobile phones, remember. The only ones who had them then were business people and tradesmen. And I will add the congregation thought the priests actions were justified.

Reminds me of what a lecturer said at our first psychology lecture. He said the student whose phone rang during the lecture was to suffer the indignation of everyone in the audience staring at him.

Not everyone is embarrassed by their phone ringing at an inappropriate time. Some even answer it them and there. I had the GM of a game I was playing answer a call from his girlfriend while he was running the game, in the middle of a fight when everyone was dependant on him. For the confused, it's like a presenter answering the phone during a presentation before the end.

I was really tired this morning and it was a bit chilly, so I didn't get into the pool before we left for the party. No problem. The party was at a park with a water park, which also has a regular pool. I figured once we got the kids settled, mom could keep an eye on my kids and I could do my laps. It was all working well until I got to the section of the pool that was clearly marked for lap swimmers only. So, I'm doing my laps and these people are in my way. They wouldn't move so I had to swim around them. I heard the lifeguard shoo them away. About 5 minutes later, the people were back, and brought more of their friends with them. The lifeguard shoes them away, but I still had to swim around them. Less than a minute later (on my return trip), guess who was there? And this time with their kids! The lifeguard threatened to eject them from the water park if they got in the way of the lap swimmer one more time.

Guess who got ejected? And they pitched a loud enough fit that the off-duty cop serving as security had to get involved.

Logged

Some people lift weights. I lift measures. It's a far more esoteric workout. - (Quoted from a personal friend)

This was before everyone had mobile phones, remember. The only ones who had them then were business people and tradesmen. And I will add the congregation thought the priests actions were justified.

Reminds me of what a lecturer said at our first psychology lecture. He said the student whose phone rang during the lecture was to suffer the indignation of everyone in the audience staring at him.

Not everyone is embarrassed by their phone ringing at an inappropriate time. Some even answer it them and there. I had the GM of a game I was playing answer a call from his girlfriend while he was running the game, in the middle of a fight when everyone was dependant on him. For the confused, it's like a presenter answering the phone during a presentation before the end.

Actually, it's more like you're playing a video game, and suddenly during a fight with a monster, a YouTube video starts up!

This was before everyone had mobile phones, remember. The only ones who had them then were business people and tradesmen. And I will add the congregation thought the priests actions were justified.

Reminds me of what a lecturer said at our first psychology lecture. He said the student whose phone rang during the lecture was to suffer the indignation of everyone in the audience staring at him.

Not everyone is embarrassed by their phone ringing at an inappropriate time. Some even answer it them and there. I had the GM of a game I was playing answer a call from his girlfriend while he was running the game, in the middle of a fight when everyone was dependant on him. For the confused, it's like a presenter answering the phone during a presentation before the end.

My ex-FIL is now a bishop but this occurred when he was an Archdeacon. One day he was running very late to perform a wedding due to going to visit a dying parishioner for the last time and saying prayers with her and her family. So late that he rushed into the vestry, put his robes on and then raced to the front of the church just in time to greet the groom on his arrival (as verger I already had the church ready and everything organised so no-one realised he was running late). 5 minutes later the bride arrives, the processional is done, he gives his speech about turning mobile phones off and not taking photos and starts into the service. About 10 minutes into the service, a phone starts ringing. Yup, it's FIL's phone. He pulled it out from under his robes, apologised, made a joke and got on with the service. I do not think he was a special snowflake, he just forgot to take it out and leave it in the vestry as he usually did because he was running late there was too much else on his mind. Turned out later, it was the parishioner's family ringing to tell him she had passed. So I figure if a priest can make that mistake in church and still become a senior bishop, then anyone can make that mistake, be forgiven for it and not deserve a glare if they immediately take steps to ensure the distraction is minor.